Your best pics of 09-10

Loving the NH shots. Looks like some super fun stuff there.

April 24th at Berthoud Pass. Pass was closed for Avalanche control until almost 1pm. Snotel told us a lot of snow had fallen, turned out to be worth the wait.

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Without a doubt the best day conditions wise we had last season.
 
EMSC":2ctuqwke said:
But for me I always tend to select some sort of action pics as my best. I guess since they are harder to stage/get.
Like EMSC I’m a big fan of action shots; even with help from all the advances in modern photographic equipment they can still be difficult… but good ones are oh so good! I’m not sure about my “best” shots from the season, but I added a couple of my favorites and linked to a couple of honorable mentions below.

Mother Nature was a little less accommodating than usual last season in terms of getting action shots of lift-served powder skiing, since ’09-’10 was rather lackluster in Northern Vermont as far as snowfall was concerned; the resorts along the spine north of I-89 all received roughly 70-80 % of their normal snowfall, as did our location in Waterbury. Bolton Valley was at the top end of that range, in part thanks to being on the fringe of Burlington’s record snowfall event, but it was still the first sub 300-inch snowfall season at Bolton Valley since we returned from Montana in 2006, and our lowest season total for snowfall at the house as well. Based on numbers in the 50% range for seasonal snowfall at some areas in Western Montana though, it could have been a lot worse than what we dealt with around here in Northern Vermont.

Even with the dearth of snowfall there were of course decent periods of skiing with supplies of fresh snow – the first image I chose is from the second half of the holiday period when we got in several days of powder skiing up at Bolton. Thanks to back-to-back storms, one that started on the 28th of December, and a second that started on December 31st and continued right into the new year, we picked up 34 inches of snow down at the house, and I don’t know the exact numbers from up on the hill, but Bolton accumulated somewhere around 4 feet. I caught some nice images of Ty burying himself in Champlain Powder™ in Bolton’s Timberline area, and a favorite was from one of the chutes dropping into the KP Glades:

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The second image I chose was from the backcountry, which was somewhat fitting due to the way the season played out. The low snowfall during the ’09-’10 season was in large part a result of the low number of snowstorms that hit the area – only 36 storms reached our location in Waterbury because many more than usual, especially some very large ones, stayed to the south in the Mid Atlantic region. Although the lower number of storms meant less snow, it also meant a rather consistent backcountry snowpack, since there were fewer concerns about mixed precipitation events and we were often on the cold, dry, north side of storms. I chose another shot of Ty that I liked from our backcountry outing on Bald Hill in January. After the big storm at the beginning of the month, we only had 13.6 inches of additional snow at the house through the entire remainder of January. The higher elevations had a bit more than that of course, but it was certainly dry and the backcountry was the place to be for the best snow:

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I’m definitely on board with Tony’s idea of the honorable mention, so I chose a couple of additional action photos from the season that I also liked. These shots might not even be in my top five vs. some of the powder action shots, but they would probably make the top 20 list of favorite shots from the season, and they highlight a couple of additional periods that stand out when I think back on the skiing. In the spirit of sticking with a maximum of two pictures as EMSC indicated at the start of the thread, I’ll just link to the honorable mention photos and not insert them here.

The first honorable mention highlights another snowy period in our area: the end of February when once again there was a multitude of powder days. A trio of storms, including some big, almost spring-like monsters, came through the northeastern U.S. The first storm started up on February 18th, it was followed by another on the 23rd, and then finally a third starting on February 25th. The three storms combined to drop 32.6 inches of snow down in the valley at the house, and all told, Bolton Valley received between 5 and 6 feet of snow from the events, with 43 inches of that derived from just the second storm. The snow level was up and down a bunch through the period, with some dense snow in there, but all that precipitation really put down a ton of liquid atop the snowpack (6.17” of liquid equivalent on Mt. Mansfield), thoroughly resurfaced all the slopes, and brought the snow depth at the stake past the 100-inch mark. The first honorable mention shot I chose is one of Ty in the Villager Trees at Bolton Valley on February 27th as the third storm was winding down. It wasn’t a shot of him getting super deep, but it was a good example of the way things were laid down with lots of dense snow topped off with some lighter stuff.

The second honorable mention shot I chose is one from the Mt. Washington snowfields at the end of May. The trends of frequent dry weather that we’d seen also seemed to hang around into the spring, and it didn’t do much for spring powder, but there were an awful lot of sunny spring days leading to the production of some great corn snow.

I’m certainly looking forward to the upcoming season, with the hope for a return to more normal levels of snowfall around here, but looking back I realize that things were still pretty good. Out of everyone I shot, Ty was definitely the photogenic one this season (appearing in three out of the four images above); his skiing style just seems to provide that certain look. Each year as the boys’ stamina, technique, and capabilities improve, it opens up the potential for more and better pictures, so it will be fun to see what this season brings.
 
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Gord, Larsen Ridge, Terrace, BC


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Christine, Shames backcountry, Terrace, BC



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Gord, Larsen Ridge, Terrace, BC



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Ian, Larsen Ridge, Terrace, BC


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Véro, Smuggler's notch backcountry, VT
 
Tuckered pup. Post Double Head, NH tour...
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BC near Franconia, NH. New Years 2010...
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Hot tub time machine? Nope, just low quality cell phone cam....
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My sh1t is weak...

I probably did more of this:

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Although I did rock the local teeter-totter on my skinny skis

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An obscure line in Patagonia

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My family doing what we love best

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Cold powder and fun terrain features

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Visiting with a Fox in his element

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My better half carving

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snowboard247":2ra4isz4 said:
what the hell kinda tires are those on your bike? they look so damn beefy!
The bike is called a Pugsley. The frame and rims allow for a 3.8" tire. It rocks in the snow, sand, or anything else for that matter.
 
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